What is it?
Here’s an oxymoron if ever there was one: a Sport badge on a Honda Jazz. Yet, that moment has arrived as part of a series of revisions to your nan’s favourite supermini with the space of a mini-MPV.
The Sport badge refers more to exterior tweaks than dynamic ones (think the usual sporty bodykit and alloy treatment), but there’s a mild whiff of sport about the new 1.5-litre engine and its 128bhp and 114lb ft.
Those figures are no hot hatch – and not even warm hatch – but the experience of our first drive on UK roads shows they at least provide something other than pure visual trickery to justify that Sport badge.
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Wrong target?
As a current Civic owner for whom the new model is too big, this is of interest to me. However, it seems odd to omit climate control, as in practice it's going to be seen as a top-of-the-range spec rather than one appealing to "sporty" drivers. Not sure if it's even available as an option.
The comments on the engine just seem like sour grapes - VTEC engines are like that anyway.
No point
Just can't understand why they're bringing this engine to Europe instead of the Hybrid that has been sold in Japan for years now, or the 1.0L Turbo fitted to the Civic.
Doesn't suit the cars character, co2 numbers aren't great... no one will buy it.
As for the magic seats - They really are neat. Hopefully they don't do away with them like they have on the Civic.
Finally
Someone else noticed Honda don’t actually make good engines.
Now for the Ingenium engines to get the bad reviews they deserve?
Don't they? Compared with
Don't they? Compared with whom?
I had a 2005 jazz, (as the review implies, bought for the space available in a cheap to run small car) and its engine compared very favourably against a 1.2 or 1.4 ford, vw or any other equivalent, way more economical than my daughter's fiesta as well as cheaper to tax and more powerful, so not a bad engine. I've never thought of them as making the best engines but always considered them to be good and very comparable with all others.
Hasnt there always been a jazz sport? I know there was a mk 1 version which was just a spec, no engine upgrade. Elsewhere, jazz have had sporty versions with 1.5s and have been seen as youthful cars with quite a lot of max power type modifications as opposed to the mini mpv, sensible slippers image in the uk.